Northern Powerhouse Virtual Mission Programme: Japan

Andrew is a Legal Director in the Corporate Team of DAC Beachcroft LLP.

Having studied Japanese at Sheffield University and Kobe University in Japan, Andrew has worked for over 10 years in Japan for various law firms and, most recently, as general counsel for Accenture Japan (working language Japanese).

Andrew specialises in corporate and commercial law and runs the firm’s Japan Desk. In his spare time he translated Yukio Mishima’s novel “The Frolic of the Beasts” (published by Penguin Modern Classics in 2019).

Matt is the eCommerce Geek at Sales Geek, having worked in the eCommerce space for a number of years, Matt has gained an incredible amount of experience working with small start-ups through to large Publicly Traded companies making in excess of 20,000 orders a day. Matt specialises in Branding & Customer Experience and uses his logistics and fulfilment knowledge to help businesses gain repeat orders from the often overlooked side of eCommerce.

Emi is an experienced language expert, currently running emis consulting, providing customer-oriented interpretation and translation services as well as a research and information consultancy. Her expertise lies in localising languages and turning them into cultural contexts with a decade of experience and understanding of multi-culture. She is also a qualified records and information management specialist and succeeded in managing more than 35 consultancy projects every year with diverse range of clients in her previous job as an archival consultant. She spent 12 years in the UK, graduated from the University of Liverpool and holds a PhD in ancient languages.

Keiko is the CEO of Beepulus Systems Inc. Beeplus Systems Inc. is an innovative system development company, providing crafted IT solutions and digital consultancy/business marketing consultancy to over 120 small-to-medium size enterprises and medical institutions. Keiko started her career in web designing and marketing and became a CEO in 2019. Her broad experience and insights enabled Keiko to develop/create an award-winning product “Uttaro” in 2013, an online immunization booking and management system, which has won many business awards in Japan and is now attracting local governments on a path to an agreement for their Covid-19 vaccination booking system. With an increase of demand in the company’s products and services since the covid-19 outbreak as well as the company’s high performance in digital development business, she is currently leading the company to develop further services and solutions for international eCommerce.

John is the ecommerce specialist International Trade Adviser in the North-West, working with businesses on their global digital marketing strategies to help raise visibility, awareness, traffic and sales across digital touchpoints. His background has previously been in sports marketing for the past decade, having worked in-house and agency for two of the world’s largest online publishers and an international sports fashion retailer.

"My experiences have been in leading creative content strategies and digital initiatives across multi-channel portfolios on a variety of brand campaigns, product launches and commercial projects for some of the world’s largest and most iconic online brands across a range of international territories.”

Haruna grew up in the Netherlands during her formative years, which led to a complete 'counter' culture shock when she returned to Japan at the age of 18. After 20+ years she returned to the Netherlands with a big ambition to connect Japan to the Netherlands, EU and the world.

She is currently Head of Accounts at Tokyoesque, a global market research and cultural insights agency based in London and Amsterdam.

Haruna has recently relocated to Amsterdam from Singapore, where she was SVP Strategy for a multinational media agency.

She appeared on the 'Women to Watch 2019' list by Campaign Asia.

In her free time, she likes to spend time with her shiba inu and cats, walk around town, and be surrounded by nature.